Falling Off a Cliff in Slow Motion
by Disguise of Carnivorism
Summary: While receiving therapy from Dr. Matsuda at an asylum in Tokyo, Light Yagami has come to realize that the Kira investigation, L, and everything that exists within that world is only a figment of his imagination. Yet the more he recognizes his own insanity, the more complex his hallucinations become-until one day the Notebook itself enters his world as a sentient doppelganger. /AU/
1. An Introduction by the Notebook

**A/N: **This is a new thing. It's not so much "alternate universe" as "multiple universe." Bear with us. Also, Matsuda quotes PK Dick in there somewhere; we're not that insane, and that wasn't us. Just like Death Note. Y'know.

* * *

**PROLOGUE: An Introduction by the Notebook**

* * *

Imagine a stage.

You are seated in the audience seats and watch the still black curtain. There is nothing particularly imaginative about it, nothing outstanding; you see the dust on its hem as if that makes it somehow less significant than it already is. It is ordinary, it is a guise, it is little more than a mask. You find yourself tiring of masks.

The curtain lifts to no music and to an empty stage. The stage may as well be empty, you think, for you can't see a thing. You are looking at more darkness, more black curtains; this annoys you because you came to see the show, not the shadows. You have no time to be patient. There is a time limit to a tragedy, and time wears on.

It is the walls that illuminate first, burning themselves into existence like rising embers poked by some unseen presence. They rise flickering into yellow life until they seem not to be walls at all, but have instead become burning pillars.

This, you think, is the stage.

A faint spotlight appears far in the back of the stage, up stage center, highlighting a group of shades surrounding a fallen man in a blue suit. The men who are the shades seem to be little more than furniture, only statues put there for effect; their faces are concealed by dim lighting as they look down upon the fallen man. Perhaps they are statues of weeping angels, but you feel this will become clear with time and do not spare them further thought. The stage remains like this, with its lone man surrounded by hollow creatures, and meanwhile, the spotlight becomes steadily brighter. It is only the setting, little more than a picture. You must wait for the story to come.

As the stage brightens you see red flowers upon his suit. Then you realize that they are not blossoms: they are spreading. A sense of certainty comes over you that this lighted man, this still man, is dead. No one moves on the stage, but the stains grow and a pool is spreading beneath him. The shades remain meaningless, but their non-existence begins to gather shape and form. Dust catches in the light and drifts down, looking for all the world like flakes of snow falling upon this man's untimely grave.

His head faces you, he opens his eyes, and he smiles.

He stands, then, allowing you to see him as he truly is. His golden eyes are almost covered by auburn hair that seems more scarlet than it should be in the lamp light. His skin is unearthly pale, perhaps by fault of the lighting or perhaps by death. He brushes down his stained and wrinkled suit while looking at the shades around him with a soft smile.

He turns his gaze on you and he begins to walk forward. There is a chill in your bones.

This is the narrator and the director.

He reaches the edge of the stage, his final steps echoing in the darkness. His smile loses its softness and while he looks like an angel, the red on his jacket tells you otherwise. You realize that the stage is only a stage to him, that the actors no more than puppets, and that you too are a part of the story. His realm is larger than yours, and he assimilates you into his own production.

"I am not an illusionist," is his introduction. It does not lack.

"Reality bends to me; it always has. Humans often mistake cheap stage gimmicks for my work and my work for an illusion. So do keep in mind: I am real. I am reality." To the hollow men on the stage he spares a condescending glance. "Don't explain me away as they have. It's not a wise choice to make."

He turns sideways and surveys the yellow walls, a critical eye watching their rising and fading color. The stage is a sham, a cheap imitation of the true world; it bends and twists and writhes under his gaze.

"I've decided to begin at the end, or if you're picky, _an_end. There are many endings to this show, and this is only one of them. Despite what they think, only one road leads to the yellow warehouse. There are many roads to wander. Besides, I get bored of myself, sometimes."

The shadows behind him do not move, and yet you think they should. (But they are only pictures.)

"This is perhaps the least complicated of endings, which is why I've chosen it. Best to start out slow and build from there. I am Caesar and I have two men named Brutus, but I did not ask them why. One of them had a gun, and one of them had a notebook. I suspected neither, and yet I directed it."

He stops, then, and looks up as if distracted by something; a musing expression appears on his face. For a moment he looks purely human, as if he were nothing else.

"Of course, that wasn't me. I'm something entirely different. I was not shot to death in a warehouse, but I was in the warehouse just as you are now." From the almost somber look in his eyes it appears that he has made some important distinction. Of course, he is never truly serious, and this distinction will remain to you forever unknown. He is, after all, the trickster.

He cocks his head and with that same musing expression, he elaborates. "Think of me not as the actor, the man you see here, but rather as the guiding spirit. I am the director, I am the stage lighter, I am the set designer, and I am your narrator. I'll be explaining things as best I can as we go along. I do not make illusions, but the play… the play is an illusion. The play is not my art. I didn't make it: I fiddle with it, keep it in check. I play the role but I am not the role; the role knows this, as he knows he is not me."

The men circled about him turn to face the audience, yet it looks as if they have hardly moved, unlighted as they are. You realize, now, that there is something horrible and unrealized in their existence—you thought they might be important, that they might mean something more. But you see now that they will never be more than shadows cast by his hand. They are not their own. His blood glows upon the stage in its puddle. The man in blue smiles. He always seems to smile.

"This role and I. We are separate, yet we hide behind the same face. He accounts this to his own madness and forgets that I exist. At times. It is true that he is irrational, but that does not mean that I do not exist. To him this world is the one he prefers—because in this world I remain quiet. I let him find his yellow warehouse at the end of the road. But there are so many other paths to choose from, and I become so tired of staying silent."

The narrator holds his hands widely, humbly, tracing the world of the stage and the reality it represents. You cannot help but notice that his arms stretch to fit a cross, and that when he stands like this, the world fits into the palm of his hands. "For him and for you, I have only one question. What is this quintessence of dust?" He smiles as if he has made some allusion that you should be awed by, but you don't understand what Hamlet has to do with a dead man in a yellow room. The story has begun its end, you think. It is a droll, weary end that winds more than it should.

But he narrator steps back slowly to his position among the shades; as he approaches, the shades begin to appear more human. You begin to make out their expressions. Seeing them, you realize that they aren't dead-eyed statues; their faces tell you everything. Humanity at its truest, half-formed, uncertain. They are only shadows, but they are better than this eerie, unnatural creature will ever be. As their faces light with that divine spark, you realize. The ending isn't a tapering off, as you believed—it's a climax. Yet the narrator takes no notice of this jar in the flow; he merely steps back into the center of their gaze.

The humans don't see him, you realize, because they are still looking down where his body once lay. To them he is nothingness; he is no more real than the stage he has offered up. His words are full of half-truths and lies. He is the illusion, the illusionist, and the god of this world he has created. One need only look at their faces and see an entire history, fabricated by this mad god, in a single instant of lighting and narration. (So then, they are still statues after all, no matter how expressive their stone faces).

The narrator still stares at you with those blazing eyes—as if he knows what you have just thought. He snaps his fingers and gives one final command before the stage disappears into the darkness once again.

"And with that, let's start the show."

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**Reviews are the jam to our toast.**


	2. Light Contemplates his Mental Health

**A/N:** That last chapter was a little disconcerting, so here's something actually grounded in some sort of full reality.

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**CHAPTER ONE: Light Contemplates his Mental Health**

* * *

"Wait, I think I'm getting this. So Nurse Misora is possibly dead, but you aren't sure because you can't remember if you killed her or not. It might have been a suicide attempt, but you have your doubts because you think that there's something off there, too."

Doctor Matsuda looked down at his desk, closing his eyes and sighing. His name stood upon a gold plaque with the appropriate letters trailing behind; on the wall, his degrees rested behind glass with light obscuring each university's name. Light sometimes watched those instead of the doctor, searching for a sign of forgery.

"That's the general idea."

Matsuda nodded and opened his eyes, blowing out a stream of air and running a hand through his hair. "You know, Light, most hallucinations aren't this complicated. I may have you make a timeline, or a flow chart. Just to help me keep track of everyone."

Light looked to the window on his left, noticing the change in seasons. He could have sworn it was winter last he looked, but… things had changed. Outside the cherry blossoms had begun to bud on the trees, bright petite suns risen against winter's night. The clouds wove themselves in and out of the sky; through them, Light could see patches of the blue sea that rested above them.

"Tell me, Light, is everyone here, everyone you've met in this hospital—are we all your enemies in this other world?" Matsuda asked with a cheerful smile, which belied the fact that he was asking about Light's vivid and rather morbid hallucinations."Do we all mysteriously disappear? Are we blanked out like Ms. Misora was?"

Light saw Matsuda then, imagining his double over the doctor's shoulder. The other Matsuda always seemed smaller, less professional, boyish and slow. Perhaps it was his hair: it was longer in that other world, and his eyes were a bit younger. Light tried to see that other world and explain his relationships, those terribly complicated relationships, with its residents.

"No, I don't know, I'm not sure. In the hallucination, you're an imbecile scarcely able to hold his job. You speak too much, almost get yourself killed, and endanger the world on a daily basis. I don't believe I am your enemy, or at least not your direct enemy, but I do consider you a hindrance to everything I hope to achieve."

"Really? You know, I've always wanted to be a policeman. I love cop shows."

Light's eyes narrowed. "Yes, you say things like that a lot over there. It gets old very fast. ...And you're more of a coffee boy, anyway."

Matsuda ignored Light's comment with an almost eye-roll and motioned for him to continue. "Anyone else? Just me and Misora?"

"No, L is there too."

"L?"

"… The janitor."

Light closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Because of course in this world, this real world, L would be nothing more than a janitor who had never finished high school.

Matsuda clapped his hands together. "Oh, you mean Larry!" he exclaimed, inappropriately delighted. "Larry is the great detective, then."

"Yes, and I'm not sure what I think of him. Sometimes I think we are friends, but… Sometimes I look at him and I know that he is the most evil man I have ever met, and that if I were a little more… I would kill him. I know that I would kill him."

Despite having therapy to sort out of his problems, there were certain problems Light often left unmentioned. Matsuda did not directly address these. Light did not often bring to light the fact that in that other world, he was accused every day of murder, and that sometimes Light believed that he himself could have done it. To mention this was to break the careful charade they played. Unfortunate, because Matsuda was confident that an unaddressed might-be-a-murderer alter-ego wasn't the best for Light's therapeutic progress. Pretending it away always cracked Matsuda's grin until he had trouble rebuilding it again.

"Light, I want you to picture this world. This world of detectives and serial killers. I want you to really look at it, and tell me, Light, does it make any sense? How can things like that possibly be real? I want you to look, really look, and see the flaws."

Light tapped his fingers against his knees and continued to stare at Matsuda, still seeing double. The doctor with the fool's shadow, the janitor with the genius's, the madman with the murderer's. Hairline fissures ran through the dream, cracks of lies and nonsense.

"If that were the real world, then God would have to be insane."

* * *

"You know Light, your test scores are off the charts."

Light blinked. "My what?"

"Your test scores. Your intelligence, your brain power. Everything skyrockets into outer space and all we pitiful earthlings can do is watch." Light stared awkwardly. "Yeah, I know I'm not good with the metaphors, don't remind me." Matsuda wasn't looking at Light; rather, he was looking at a series of papers on his desk. Light was left to infer they were scores from tests in high school, although he had no idea when they'd started talking about anything of the sort.

"Is that important?" Light asked.

Matsuda looked up, a half-smile on his face. "Yeah, it means that we can never have a real conversation. You and I both know it. You'll always dumb yourself down to me and I'll always bluff myself up to you. We can't really talk to each other; there's no shame in admitting that."

"Weren't we talking about God?" Light asked, looking around the office for the windows. The blinds were closed.

Matsuda straightened a bit in his seat, puzzled. "I think, sometimes, we're always talking about God." Matsuda paused as if waiting for Light to elaborate or explain, but continued when Light remained silent: "You know, some psychiatrists would try to bluff their way out of this. They'd look at their patients and mistake hallucinations for stupidity—well, not mistake, but more, substitute. Out of fear, I think. They'd see the world you've created, this fantastic, horrible, complicated world, and they'd say it's a turn for the worst."

Light looked around the office, noticing that some items had shifted from their previous position. The name plaque had moved to the left slightly, there were new papers on the desk, there was a plant in the back corner, the blinds were drawn. His chair had been a ghastly paisley _thing _that smelled like old thyme, but was now a dull, wheeled office chair.

"Isn't it?" Light asked as the realization dawned on him that it had happened again. He had left again, gone elsewhere, and yet…

"No, I don't think so. If you spent all that energy, all those thoughts, creating that world, then I know you can pull yourself out of it. We're talking about it, talking honestly. I think you believe me. I think that one day, you will walk out the doors of this asylum."

Light felt the room darkening; Matsuda's presence remained but his words drifted. He had gone somewhere else, there was nothing in between, time had passed and he hadn't even noticed.

"Light, it's the hardest thing in the world to decide whether your world is real or not. It's not a sign of insanity to doubt—everyone doubts. Descartes, after all the work and thought he put into this world, could only say that he, God, and math existed. Nothing else."

Light smiled, then, as the world returned little by little. "That's not something you should be telling a patient who hallucinates."

"Perhaps not, but Light, honestly, I don't know what to do with you." Matsuda sighed and held up his hands, shrugging his defeat.

"Why not? Am I that different?"

"Yes, you are that different. Most people hallucinate a purple dragon, or spiders, or subplots to their dreary lives, or an elephant on a table holding a teacup… but you created an entire world. Not just a world, but a very complicated, very different world from our own. You took people from this reality, twisted their personalities, and formed complex relationships with them. For you, that world has just as much reason to exist as this one, and yet I know that it doesn't."

Light almost felt like laughing. "That's also something you don't tell your patient."

"You're going to have to decide for yourself, Light. I can't pick the real world for you. I hope that you'll choose this one, but in the end you're going to have to make that decision yourself. Before you decide, though, I want you to remember what that other world is made of. Remember that a world ruled by a serial killer is not a place that can last, whether it's real or not. You won't be happy there."

"Is that all?"

Matsuda smiled. "Reality, Light, is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

* * *

"Let's talk about your sister," Doctor Matsuda began. It seemed these moments of confused disorientation always began with Matsuda talking.

Light looked at the doctor, again noticing the changes in the room. His eyes widened and he realized—admitting one was getting better and that one world was realer than the other... it was not the same as being better.

The plant in the corner had been replaced without his notice, new silk flower petals gracing green plastic; somehow without his notice, the world had made its forged presence slightly more conspicuous. Except the intended idea was the opposite: the world wasn't forged, but was in fact the only true world... Odd, that it got faker day by day.

"What do you want to know about Sayu?" Light asked.

"Well, she seems very interesting." Matsuda shrugged, revealing the casual nature of his inquiry. "As far as you've told me, she's the only one who seems almost the same in this world as she is in the other one. She remains unchanged in your mind, and that's important. I think Sayu Yagami is the key, the fixed point that will help you merge back into the real world."

Despite everything, Light did like Matsuda (which was odd because in the other world he barely tolerated the man). Matsuda was interesting, and while he wasn't on par with Light, he could hold a decent conversation. It wasn't so much that his other-world personality was different or twisted inside Light's head—certain traits were oddly highlighted. His childishness, his sense of humor, his habit of saying the wrong pun at the wrong time were all brought into focus within Light's mind, exaggerated until nothing else of the man remained. It was part of what was wrong with that other world, he supposed: the outside characters were far too one-dimensional.

"I haven't seen my sister in years," Light said.

Matsuda's smile disappeared. "Light, you saw her just last week. She visited."

"Did she?" Light asked then, putting a hand against his eyes. He laughed, thinking of that other world and how the same problems plagued him there. It was always the memories, the doubt, the constant looking over his shoulder to prove himself, to prove he was worthy of living.

Yet, this world seemed more real. This world was filled with doctors and sisters and people who tried to help; this world was filled with light. Everything in that other place was suspicion and death: L was not a kind man, L was not a kind friend. Light and L could not talk, so they played games with each other instead. Hide and seek behind masks, find the liar, reach the finish line, threats and shadows of threats. If ever he were to decide on the merit of morality alone, then surely that world deserved to be destroyed.

"You don't remember, do you," Matsuda said, writing on a notepad; whatever it was would no doubt come back to haunt Light later. _Patient degenerating. Reality forgotten. Lost time. Disoriented. Mad. _"How much do you remember, Light?" His eyes are kind.

Light wondered, as he looked in the doctor's sad, earnest eyes, if anything had changed. "Time skips for me. I'm sure if I think hard enough, I'll remember my sister visiting, but it's as if I've forgotten things in between, like I wasn't really there—like I existed only partially. I think I was somewhere else entirely."

"Did you go to the other reality?" Matsuda asked.

Honesty, for Light, sounded desperately blunt. "I don't know."

The pen moves again. _Such a brilliant boy, so much lost. Such a pity._

There was a moment of silence. Matsuda simply looked at him, a desperate pity growing in his eyes. It grew dimmer as he said calmly, "Let's talk about your sister."

* * *

"You are getting better. Don't doubt that, Light. We're making progress."

Light looked at him out of vague eyes. "I suppose so, though I don't see much of a difference."

"You talk more than you used to." Matsuda pointed out, using his pen for emphasis, "You talk to other people, not just me. You remember more, and you admit that one world is real and that another is false. That is amazing progress."

Light smiled the bitter smile he first learned under the tutelage of L, the great detective. "I'm surprised you haven't shoved drugs down my throat and put me in shock therapy."

Matsuda looked grave, as he always did when Light brought out this bitter side to his personality. Even Light in the asylum, the true Light, was still made of masks. There was no such thing as an honest Light; even when he tried, he always ended up lying through his teeth.

"I considered it, when you first came here," Matsuda said quietly, looking at his desk. "I don't think it would work. Perhaps short term. I don't know. Perhaps if I used shock therapy and gave you pills, you would be released and could go home. You'd see your family again, and everything would be back to normal. If you didn't believe, though, if you hadn't reached that conclusion yourself, it would never last. I know what that other world is made of. You'd assume it was some trick on L's part, some way to make you talk. You'd stop taking the drugs. Then all that work would be for nothing, and you'd be gone."

"I wonder why he hasn't thought of that," Light said, thinking of the detective in his head. "I'm sure he would have loved that idea." Utter annihilation. Mental, physical, and existential non-existence. L's justice ideal sounded more like Mu every time Light thought about it.

"Light, you need to convince yourself. That's what some psychiatrists don't understand. The patient has to believe it. Drugs aren't good enough; there has to be faith in the world around them—the real, steadfast world—and there has to be a way to tell the difference."

"Am I really improving?" (Of course there was no reason for Light to ask because he was not, and he knew he was not, and it was all a careful charade to disguise how far he was spiralling downwards...)

Matsuda smiled again, that strange doppelganger smile that reminded Light so much of that other Matsuda. He looked relieved and happy, and for a small moment, proud. That took Light aback. He had forgotten what pride looked like, in this white-walled world.

"Yes, Light, you're getting better."

* * *

"I don't understand it; I don't know why I… What was I talking about?" Light stopped and looked at Matsuda, his body hunched over and his eyes locked on the plaques above Matsuda's head. With horror, he realized the room had changed again; the lights had been replaced and were much brighter than they had been.

"How did I get here?" Light asked. He straightened his posture to look Matsuda in the eye and compose himself.

"Light, calm down," Matsuda said.

"I don't remember…" Light took a ragged breath, feeling himself come apart at the seams. "I don't remember what I was even talking about."

Not like this. He wouldn't fall apart like this. Not here, where there were others. But there was no stopping it. He was already laughing; his hands were running through his hair and the world spinning into darkness.

"Light, I need you to calm down,"

"Calm down? I wasn't even here, Matsuda! Don't you understand that?! That thing talking to you wasn't me. Can't you tell the difference?"

"Light—"

"Don't talk to me! Getting better, getting better all the time. How can I possibly be getting better? You're tracking someone else's progress, Doctor Matsuda. Tell me, is he doing well?" Light asked with a glint in his eye that felt so forgotten, yet so familiar. Something in Matsuda's expression twisted, deep in the skin, out of sight. But Light could sense it, see it in the blank reassurance of the psychiatrist's smile. He had the power to twist this man, tie him up and feel him writhe on the inside. This was from that other world, that other forgotten face—this was what it felt like to be Kira.

"You have to calm down!"

"Is this supposed to be convincing? You know, it's a pity that a world that seems much more realistic, so much more pleasant, has more holes and fallacies than the other." Light knew without looking that it was Kira's smile he wore. "Well then, tell me what I was doing, that I've been here the whole time."

"Light…"

"Let's play this liar's game, and we'll see if it makes any difference in the end."

* * *

In the hospital bed, Light stared at the ceiling; the lights were off and all the shadows come out to play. He imagined them whispering in his ear, descending. Perhaps they were; in this place, the shadows had wills of their own.

He closed his eyes but could still hear them—in his head, beside his ear. Everywhere and nowhere.

"Are you what I've forgotten?" he asked.

They didn't answer.

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	3. L Attempts an Intervention of Sorts

A/N: ...Things grow clearer, hopefully.

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**CHAPTER TWO: L Attempts an Intervention**

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It was an odd thing, to decide your world wasn't real, Light decided as he watched the great detective L peer at him through iris-less eyes. Or rather, as he watched the psychosis-induced doppleganger of Larry the great janitor, who mopped the floors of the mental institution. Light was still there, and had been locked there for god knows how long. But the world before him said otherwise. The detective was slouched over his computer, the blue light turning the bags under his eyes into pits; his eyes (which seemed without iris and therefore without soul) reflected the screen and appeared to belong more to a ghost than a human. This was a whole world, Light's own private world, filled with monsters.

He wondered what it said about him that the world he created to escape from reality would be so dark. Detectives, serial murderers, suspicion at every turn… Matsuda was right: even if both worlds were to be considered equally, there was something fundamentally wrong with a world that fed on murder.

And L, the hunter and the friend, the ghost that whispered in his ear promises of execution and glory, the man who had literally chained himself to Light… only a figment of his imagination. The man he sometimes wished he could kill, laughed with, admired… Nothing.

He realized he had been staring at L, who was unusually pensive in this other world. It was different in reality. He thought quite a lot and spoke very little in that other world. Then again, Light remembered vaguely (it was hard to remember things in a world that was no more than fabricated memories) that before he had been forced to protest his innocence, he had been that solemn young man. Supposed guilt brought a lot of words he had never known that he had owned.

(What a melodrama, he thought, I've made for myself.)

L was watching him through hooded eyes, perhaps realizing that for once, he could not read Light's thoughts. Light had lost faith in L, and as a result L's hold on Light's reality was slipping. He could make L disappear simply by thinking about it—no more Kira, no more L, no more gun against his head screaming don't let me die, Father!

L would be gone, just like that. Like nothing. That was the beauty of not being real; the sandman's pictures were so easily fractured, and no mess left behind. Light could move on. Light could leave, and it would mean nothing to him.

It didn't matter whether he was Kira or not—there was no Kira. Believing in his own sanity, Light had lost sight of the greater picture. It would never matter whether L promised execution or salvation, whether he proved himself or not: he wasn't even here.

It was odd, how liberating it felt to be insane.

"Is something worrying, Light-kun?" L asked in that tone that asked fifty unspoken questions, some of them threatening.

Light smiled, genuinely smiled. "It's nothing."

There the detective stood, a strange man in all respects, the cotton fabric of his shirt wrinkled through the wear of the late night, the bags under his eyes a little more pronounced than they had been in days past, his hands shoved in the pockets of his faded jeans, and his eyes—his eyes heavy, hooded, without iris, almost obscured by black hair like raven feathers. So much detail worked into something that was less real than a psychiatrist at his wits' end in a mental hospital.

It was night in that world inside Light's head. The others (the disguised Doctor Matsuda among them) had long since departed for their own fabricated homes and families. Light had been desperately attempting to find a Kira other than himself, and the night had frayed him thin. He imagined that in L's eyes he would look a little thinner, his skin starker, and his eyes a bit sharper than they had been before. It had struck him, then, as he had remembered between keystrokes, that it wasn't real.

There was no witch hunt. There was no Kira.

When that realization struck, he had stopped typing and had merely stared blankly at the screen.

That had been the chink in the dam, and the flood of terror had descended. The computer itself, he realized, all the information he had been dutifully looking through, only came from himself. He had turned to L, something dying in his eyes, and realized that it didn't matter what he thought because L thought nothing. L wasn't even real.

And now he looked L in the eyes.

Nothing had never been clear to him before. His mind had always distracted him from the reality of the situation. He had been desperately struggling to prove himself; somehow his mind always distracted him just enough so that he could never quite look at his situation and see how ridiculous it truly was. He had refused to examine the prospect of his own insanity. That would make him Kira, not Light—he had believed. And yet that insane Light was the one that was far happier, was undeniably innocent.

The real Light hadn't seen his sister in years. The real Light didn't have any friends, never had any friends. The real Light was brilliant, but catatonic and under-stimulated. The real Light liked Matsuda far more than he had ever liked the detective L. The real Light was far more tired than he dared show. The real Light kept being dragged back, kept forgetting, kept selfishly keeping his passport to that world inside his head, just in case things did not work out.

What did that make Light Yagami, then? The Light Yagami he was. Was the Light in his head different from the Light in that other world? What would L think? Would he be happier with that other Light than he had been with the not-Kira he had received open-armed from the prison cell?

(Light's fingers had begun to tremble so terribly at that point that letters began to randomly assemble themselves according to his mad typing; L couldn't help but turn and notice the inward expression of horror as the walls came tumbling down. He must have assumed it was Kira.)

If this world were not real, then it all would have been for nothing. All that pain and death and proving of oneself. But then, wasn't that a good thing? Perhaps there was no grand meaning to his other life, to that other world, but wasn't that what life was supposed to be? Only tragedy had meaning; the absurd prevailed above all else.

"Light-kun," L started, dragging Light into the present moment where the detective crouched next to him, staring at him through eyes that seemed concerned. "You're hiding something."

Light looked away and toward the window where the city was alive with tiny stars trapped in glass windows. The real Tokyo, Matsuda had told him, was not so very different from the one in his mind. It still looked like the night sky reflected onto a still lake. Somehow, that made him far happier than even the once-cherished belief in his own sanity had.

"I'm not Kira, Ryuzaki. You know that."

"Perhaps not at this very moment," L agreed. "But you've changed."

Light wondered if he should be impressed that the detective had caught on, or feel slight pity at the fact that his subconscious felt the need for an intervention. He decided not to care. "Really? That's very interesting."

"Yes, it is, isn't it, Light-kun?" L's eyes narrowed and he placed his thumb between his teeth, a habit Light had felt that he had grown far too used to.

Light smiled and shook his head. He wondered if L saw Kira in that motion.

"I don't think you care anymore. That passion to prove your innocence is gone. You help but you don't try. When I call Light-kun Kira, he smiles and grows more distant. Yet, I would understand if it was just me. It is everyone, it is everything; Light-kun is fading away losing himself in his own world."

Light said nothing, waiting and watching to see what his own subconscious would use to argue against him. L appeared to be waiting, too, waiting for Light to say something, and L was right that old Light would have, but he was different now. He had changed.

"Light-kun is not Kira, but I do not know what he is busily becoming," L said slowly. "Doesn't Light-kun at all care about his family?" The question was different from the rest of L's musings, sharp and precise.

That poor man. He must have known, behind that mask of detective L, that he was going to die. He must have known that he was spun out of fantasy and that the fantasy would soon be ending. L would fade away into nothingness, into a story from Light's life that he would look over with regret and doubt.

Light would never stand on L's grave. He'd never get to say goodbye.

"Yes, I care."

"Then tell me, what do you think you will accomplish by giving up?" L said sharply, slamming his hand on the table, his raven's eyes blazing.

"I…" Light trailed off as L continued ranting.

"Yes, Light-kun you are giving up. And you are condemning your father to watch in horror as you are condemned to being Kira simply because you didn't try hard enough. What will he tell your mother? Your sister?"

"Why do you care?" Light asked suddenly, his head tilted and his eyes narrowed dangerously. "Since when do you care about anyone other than yourself and your case?"

"I care about you!"

There was silence after that; the room grew perfectly still and Light felt as if they were being tilted sideways. The room was shifting and the shadows were growing larger. His eyes tracked those shadows, watching them as they moved. Those captured stars outside, they were growing dimmer.

"I have always cared about Light-kun," L continued, staring at Light. Those dark eyes had always managed to unnerve Light. "Perhaps it is not always so obvious, but something is happening that I can't see. You're walking back from me, from everything, and I can't stand it."

The shadows moved again and his reflection in the glass upon the table dimmed. Reality flickered.

"Friends?" Light asked, looking at L with wide, curious eyes. "Are we friends, Ryuzaki?"

L did smile then. "Yes, Light-kun. I do believe that we are friends."

Light tapped his fingers against the table, aware that the room was still shifting and that the contrast was growing. Color was becoming hard to distinguish; it was as if a spotlight had been cued on the pair of them and L was glowing, as if he were an angel.

"Friends don't torture friends, Ryuzaki," Light said blankly. "You left me in a prison for fifty days and asked only the same question. You had my father place a gun against my head in order to execute me in a more fashionable manner. You've chained me to yourself in order that you might catch any thought, any slip, any mistake that would make all the difference in my death. There is, I think, no person more despicable than you."

"What about you, Light?" L asked, and yet Light noticed that L's lips hadn't moved, as if he were only a puppet, and something else had taken over the strings. Through the spotlight he could hardly see L's face.

"I am nothing. I am the man you have sentenced to death. You're just here to look for the excuse." Light held out his hands as if to show all of himself, his true self, hidden behind the mask of lucidity—that poor catatonic child who curled in a corner and rocked back and forth so that the shadows might not descend.

L's response was delayed, clipped. "Is that what you think of me?"

"Yes," Light said without a moment of hesitation. The shadows echoed in agreement, and Light knew that the whole world was on his side.

"So then, you will punish everyone who cares about you, everyone who ever loved you, simply because you do not agree with methods. I do what I have to, nothing more and certainly nothing less."

"Liar." Light said, "You're in it for the game."

L's voice came from the wings, from beyond the curtain, altered, "What game?"

"The only game there is, for you and me. You know, you may be right. I could be Kira. You're right about another thing too, though: it doesn't matter to me whether I am Kira or not. It makes no difference to me. None at all. Because for a while I didn't realize it was a game either, not until I looked up and saw the pieces in my hands as they desperately gambled for what I thought was survival… No, it was nothing. It was only a cardboard painted with squares. Nothing more than that. We've been fooling ourselves all this time. Or perhaps it's just been me; sometimes I think you've known all along."

Light noticed that the furniture around him had disappeared; the view out of the window was gone, and everything out of the spotlight had gone black. "But I'm done with the game. I have no love for it. I'm done. This is the end. Say what you like, punish who you like. I'm through."

Light looked over and noticed L was gone. In his place there was only slow-paced clapping. He felt as if there were a pit growing in his stomach and that a stone had been dropped. The stone was falling down into the darkness where it would hit still water and ripple. In the meantime, there was only the vacuum, the free fall before the realization, the everlasting fall into that deep, dark well.

Light stood, his hand moving away from the computer and the table that suddenly seemed to be made of cardboard. They were props on a stage, no less artificial than that.

The world that had seemed so real, so real that he had such difficulty convincing himself it was a fantasy, was suddenly made of plastic. He was surprised to find that his first thought was not to be relieved that he had been right, but to peer into the dark to see what was staring back at him. Something there is, he thought slowly, that does not love a wall.

Then his own voice echoed back to him with words foreign to his tongue. "Well done, Light. But I wonder if you would like to play a game with me instead?"


End file.
